Wall Street’s low-ball iPhone estimates bump into reality; Verizon, AT&T numbers suggest they could be off by as much as 45%

“When [UBS analyst Maynard Um] totes up the sales numbers coming in from Apple’s U.S. carriers, his 30 million estimate doesn’t sound quite right,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“On Wednesday, for example, Verizon (VZ) reported sales of 4.2 million iPhones in the Christmas quarter, more than twice the 2 million the carrier activated in the September quarter,” P.E.D. reports. “As Um wrote in a note to clients Wednesday… ‘If US mix was similar to the high from FY10 of 38% for CY4Q, it would imply demand for ~43.6mn iPhones (albeit unlikely that high given lower supply relative to demand).'”

P.E.D. reports, “The 43.6 million number that Um finds so unlikely is 45% higher than his official 30 million estimate.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: AAPL bears are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?

Related articles:
UBS says its 30 million Apple iPhone estimate for Q4 may have upside – January 5, 2012
Verizon: 4.2 million iPhones sold in 2011 holiday quarter – January 4, 2012

12 Comments

  1. Everyone knows that the analysts will change their numbers right before apple posts their sales and will over estimate wildly. Then they again will say that apple missed its mark so they can short the stock.

  2. If it is ONLY “43.6 million” it is because Apple could not get more manufactured at this time. Remember, “We would have sold more if we could have made more”.

    I read that Apple is also making the A5 chips in a big new facility in Texas and Brazil may be assembling iPhone for Apple now too. Made in Brazil means no tariffs more sales there too.) China and other new countries are getting iPhones this week too.

    Tsunami coming!

  3. The funny thing is this keeps repeating itself. One antiquated STEW analysis after another.

    Zaky’s trick, for all of the time consuming TOST analyses he doles out to minions, is to simply come up with a reasonable number generated by his data, and then tack on another few million.

  4. my gut feeling is more cannibalization of AT&T sales and higher US % of total sales.

    Say 6M AT&T, 4.2M Verizon, 1M Sprint, and (worst case) 45% US. That gives 24.9M. I’ll play it safe and let Apple surprise me than to overhype and get disappointed for no reason.

  5. All wall street analysts should be accountable for their misleading ( and probably detrimental to some investors) guidance, analysis, unfounded advise and blind vision. They should not be allowed to work in any financial related services or media services (by the SEC or other consumer protection agency) if their records are consistently decoupled from reality. Three strikes you’re out!

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